Luxury projects unaffordable for most people

Published: Friday, Nov. 30, 2012 1:15 a.m. CST

By Jim Mann Dixon

Dixon is in real trouble and needs a wake-up call. What are the city leaders thinking?

Rita Crundwell took more than $53 million from the city – real money spent on land, horses, vehicles and luxury items. Real money, gone. We’re hoping to get back maybe $7 million. That’s not profit. We’ll still be in the hole more than $46 million. Lost, spent.

I open the newspaper and all I see are groups trying to get part of the returning $7 million for their little projects. A boat dock, a walking bridge, $25,000 for riverfront maintenance fees (and a raise), and a fitness center.

We didn’t win the lotto, and this isn’t new income. This $7 million was ours before and we’re short more than $46 million. Maybe the problem is, it has never been reported which accounts were looted and what amounts taken. Shouldn’t we find out where the shortages are and replenish them?

We got our new grade school, courthouse, police station, fire station, fire truck and riverfront, and we remodeled Reagan’s street. You want to build a fitness center. Won’t it compete with the YMCA and put it out of business? Will the fitness center be like the Thomson prison? You can afford to build it, but not staff it? Can we afford this project?

Don’t forget the new high school project on the back burner. We can’t afford a swimming pool in the west end, but maybe on the north side? It upsetting when all elected and appointed public officials try to ram-rod something like this through. The rich and well-to-do can afford a fitness center and eventually the new high school, but the majority of Dixonites can’t.

I’m sure if you keep getting this issue on the ballot, that when there’s a small turnout, it will get approved. Only a few will use it, but all will pay for it.